Falstaff

Shakespeare’s famous hero Falstaff – glutton, drunkard and gasbag – is a symbol of hedonism and social “incorrectness”. His immorality is so perfect as to be positively grotesque. Boito’s libretto based on Shakespeare’s plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV juxtaposes the crazy Falstaff’s irresponsibility with staid bourgeois responsibility, raising the question of which of the two is more foolish. The eighty-year-old Verdi deliberately disburdened his final opera of tragic weight and handled the genre of comic opera with aplomb.
Orchestra, choir and ballet of the National Theatre Opera, externs.

The opera is staged in the Italian original version and Czech and English surtitles are used in the performance.

Duration of the performance: 2 hours and 40 minutes

Photo: Hana Smejkalová